Avoiding Orthorexia: Maintaining Nutritional Balance at College

Eating healthy food is an advisable, even laudable, pursuit in today’s world of fast food dining and the highly touted obesity epidemic.

But, just as most people know that one alcoholic drink may be fine, but ten are too many, behavioral health professionals also recognize that healthy eating when done to an extreme can be very dangerous, even lethal.

Orthorexia Nervosa

The term orthorexia was coined in 1997 by Dr. Steven Bratman, the author of the book Health Food Junkies.

Those with orthorexia are dangerously addicted to all things healthy. Their devotion to “clean eating” transcends mere practice and ultimately functions more like a religion.

Preoccupied with Nutrition and “Purity”

They are inordinately preoccupied with the nutritional content of what they eat, avoid all foods they deem to be “unhealthy,” and often spend extreme amounts of time and money in search of the “most pure” foods.

Their passion is not confined to personal food consumption, but is frequently global in nature. If any food item can be even tangentially connected to destruction of wildlife, deforestation of the planet, the polluting of ground water, or any other such unacceptable activity, then that food is demonized.

This pathological obsession permeates all aspects of their lives. They must bring food with them everywhere and often refuse to travel due to the tremendous fear that clean food will not be available.

Healthy Habits Taken to the Extreme

As with so many eating disorders, it can begin innocently. An individual may genuinely desire to eat in a healthier fashion in order to take better care of their body. This may start with eliminating white sugar and flour, cutting out processed foods, and ramping up fruit and vegetable intake.

If the pursuit of good nutrition and health stops there, the goal would be achieved. However, when in the grip of orthorexia, the pursuit never ends. Foods are labeled “good” and “bad; very few foods are deemed pure enough for inclusion in the first group.

A Healthy Eating Obsession

Untold hours are spent reading books or medical journals on healthy eating or scouring the internet for the latest research that validates their commitment to clean eating. If a study fails to reinforce their chosen lifestyle, it is eschewed as bad research.

An equal, or an even greater amount of time, is spent dissecting ingredient labels on food products, convinced that deadly toxins, artificial chemicals or non-life-affirming materials lurk somewhere inside, just waiting to be discovered.

The committed orthorexic will unearth these items, then righteously return the food to the store shelf.

The Damage of Orthorexia

This dedication to disordered eating eventually damages social relationships for a number of reasons. An orthorexic rarely goes to restaurants. Even ordering a salad with no dressing can cause severe anxiety; they do not know where the produce was harvested, if pesticides were involved in growing the lettuce, or if dye was injected into the tomatoes to make them appear more vibrantly red.

How Orthorexia Hurts People Socially

If invited to a dinner party, they will come late, claiming to have already eaten. And the impact on relationships doesn’t end there. They genuinely believe that the way they are conducting their lives is absolutely right; therefore, everyone else, by default, is wrong.

They will spend hours proselytizing to friends, hoping for converts. Outright lectures on the evils of junk food or refined food are not out of the realm of possibility.

Both conditions are highly restrictive, rigid and defined by complicated rules. Prolonged anorexia or orthorexia can lead to anemia, other glandular disorders, amenorrhea (discontinuation of the menstrual cycle), and death due to malnutrition.

Young women with anorexia are 12 times more likely to die than are other women the same age that don’t have anorexia.

Food Is Synonymous with Fear

Those with anorexia or orthorexia are completely obsessed with the thought of food and suffer high levels of anxiety when confronted with it; the bottom line is that food is synonymous with fear.

Okay Cocoa Drops, Phee and I are both cracking up watching this roast. They are going in on Justin. With next month being National Humor Month, I thought I’d post the livestream below. It’s been on for an hour and has an hour to go.

Relationships are not easy Cocoa Drops! I for one, try to find any techniques to help me when I get involved in a relationship and of course what to do in a marriage.

I found this article Saturday evening and it was comical at first but made so much sense as I kept reading.

This article shows us a simple way to show our partner that they have said something offensive to us or when we have offended our partner they show us.

The 2 words are “ouch” and “oops”. I’m sure you can come up with your own lingo but the lesson is simple.

If you are offended, you say “ouch” and then your partner says “oops” and acknowledges their words and apologizes to you and vice versa.

In the article it says that we first have to learn what kind of conflict person we are. She explains that there are 3 types of conflict styles: avoiding, validating, and volatile.

When you’re an avoider, you run from conflict and probably just say you’re sorry and don’t know what for.

Validators are the compromisers and know they can be wrong and be wronged and handle either way.

Those of us with the volatile style get seriously emotional about issues and probably are those people that scare you to death and argue all loud and crazy at times.

I use to be an avoider, I know for a fact. Due to a volatile relationship, I became volatile as well with that person in particular because he drew it out of me.

Now, I’m in between. I know how to act and respect others feelings and acknowledge when I’ve wronged someone. The only thing I hate is when you don’t know and your partner doesn’t tell you. This method is easy to understand and grasp to make relationship communication even better.